AmericasBlood.com

From CNN:

Less than an hour after Barack Obama’s team told reporters that John McCain’s Wednesday announcement that he would be suspending his campaign came after the Democratic nominee suggested a joint statement from both candidates on the financial crisis, the McCain camp issued its own account of talks between the two men.

"Senator Obama phoned Senator McCain at 8:30 am this morning but did not reach him," the campaign said in a memo sent to reporters. "The topic of Senator Obama’s call to Senator McCain was never discussed.

"Senator McCain was meeting with economic advisers and talking to leaders in Congress throughout the day prior to calling Senator Obama. At 2:30 pm, Senator McCain phoned Senator Obama and expressed deep concern that the plan on the table would not pass as it currently stands. He asked Senator Obama to join him in returning to Washington to lead a bipartisan effort to solve this problem."

Minutes after McCain’s Wednesday statement, Obama’s campaign said that the Democratic nominee had called McCain earlier that morning to ask him if he would be willing to issue a joint statement on the economy and "urg[e] Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal." They also said that McCain returned the call at 2:30 Wednesday afternoon and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement, and that the two campaigns are currently "working together on the details." McCain’s announcement came shortly before 3 p.m. ET.

So..McCain got a call from Obama in the A.M., but even though it wasn’t the magic 3AM call, McCain still wasn’t around to acknowledge it. Supposedly. I’m more inclined to believe that they did talk, but McCain just got good and GOP-reedy for credit for the idea. Adding on that he wants to avoid the debates at any cost, and this clears the way to excuse  Sarah from having to debate Joe as well. After all, after Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan felt her up, she probably wants to take a calgon bath anyways.

Now, on to the big news. Here are my suggested modifications to the economic bailout bill.

1. Any company that accepts the bailout has to cap their executive salaries at 2.5 Mil (or 10x the President’s salary) for the duration before the amount is repaid.
2. All executive termination compensation agreements are changed to no greater than 6 months (at the 2.5 mil) in salary, 6 months medical,  and a no-compete in the same sector for 3 months.
3. Any company that allows their execs to bail before accepting the assistance, would have to divert the amount of the golden parachute package off the top of the bailout as a 100% repayable portion at %10 interest to be paid before any profit can be realized to shareholders.
4. All packages include the govt becoming a percentage partner commensurate with the percentage of the aid in proportion to the company’s net worth on the day of accepting the loan until such a time as the company repays the loan at a  interest rate twice the prime rate on the day of acceptance.
5. Shareholders cannot be paid at a percentage of net profits greater than the percentage amount of the aid initially provided as calculated in the previous point.

Give me those five points and I think I *might* go along with it.